SDM from up on the bridge

I am taking the first spring semester as a long distance student in MIT's System Design and Managment (SDM) program. The long distance option, which I am grateful for, poses some challenges. A month into the semester, I am still trying to improve the interaction with the classroom, faculty and fellow students and maintain a balance between school and work.

Setting up a work station

I am using my home office (/living room /dining room/ guest sofa) from which I connect to the ‘bridge’. I find it useful to work with two screens. One displays the class, the mike controls and my video (I want to see how I appear to people looking at me from the classroom). The other displays the presentation slides and notebook (OneNote). The webcam is positioned above the main screen and when I look at the other screen, I am not facing the webcam.

Class participation

The video and sound quality are good. Material is always available before hand on the web. So keeping up with the studies is easy. The ability to participate depends on how each professor handles the interaction with the bridge. Raising my hand to answer a question is frustrating since the professor faces class and the bridge participants are behind him. I should stop being polite and just start talking.

Group assignments

The ideal group for a distance student has a majority of commuter students. Commuter students, like distance ones, hold a job and therefore prefer meeting in the evening via videoconferencing. However, unlike distance students they are often on campus and therefore have a direct access to on campus resource. If a group has a majority of distance students it would work best if most of them are at the same location.

On campus study area

All the SDM study rooms have VOIP telephones, star telephones and large LCDs to accommodate video conferencing. However, the cords for most star-phone are hopelessly entangled and therefore they are not frequently used. I swear, next time I come to campus I go to each room and untangle the star-phone cords. SDMers over in campus keep them neat!

What to avoid

Just some funny behaviors that I try to avoid while “live” on the bridge. I always remember that I am watched by around 50 people.

• The peep hole/ fish eye look – you don’t want to have the camera zoomed straight on you.
• Eating lunch in class.
• Background mayhem – the kids playing in the background (I don’t have kids) or a crowed of colleagues that spontaneously stops to chat behind you.